Putting Out Fire With Vulcazine
For All Nails #321B: Putting Out Fire With Vulcazine By Johnny Pez ---- :Tylerville, FN1 Penn., N.C., CNA :9 June 1922 Calvin Wagner was not a happy man. Once again, he found himself wondering why he hadn’t been content to be majority leader in the Grand Council. Of course, back in ’17 Albert had given it as his opinion that with the Chapultepec business behind them, things were bound to settle down again. Even then, Wagner hadn’t been so sure. With Washburne riling up the Mexicans about their slaves and Falls going on about the evils of urbanism, you didn’t have to be Thomas Edison to know that there were rocky times ahead for the C.N.A. Kilroy at the Herald had once described Wagner as “a modest man, with much to be modest about.” FN2 The longer he served as Governor-General, the more Wagner wished that he had allowed modesty to overrule ambition. Sitting on the veranda of Croft House, gazing downstream at Burgoyne, Wagner had to admit that there were times when he thought Falls had a point. These days, it was worth a man’s life to go into town -– not for fear of criminals, but for the risk of choking to death in the hazy air. FN3 Fumes from the steelworks and glassworks rose to create a brown blur over the city, making daytime as dark as night. The air had become so bad in Burgoyne that there was agitation to move the capital somewhere else. One plan gaining ground was to build a whole new capital city in the Fowler region west of Galloway. Wagner had once heard that when the First Design was being debated in Parliament, there was consideration given to founding a new capital city for the C.N.A. on the banks of the Potomac, between the Northern and Southern Confederations. In the end, though, Lord Dunmore’s creature Connolly had prevailed, and the capital had gone to Pittsborough, where he had extensive landholdings. Wagner had never been on the Potomac, but he had been to Baltimore, which was close enough. Hot and humid as the Congo, with a yellow fever outbreak to liven things up. Burgoyne was pretty bad these days, but at least they didn’t have to contend with yellow fever. Falls wanted to limit the size a city could reach to a hundred thousand people and resettle any excess out in the countryside. But you couldn’t just set an arbitrary limit to the size of a city, could you? People went to the cities because that was where the jobs were. But on the other hand, what were they going to do about the air? Wagner’s ruminations were interrupted by the sound of a screen door opening, with the spring making that funny stretching sound. “Judge? Sorry to disturb you, sir.” It was Seamus O’Shaughnessy, Wagner’s secretary, emerging from within Croft House. “Not at all, Mr. O’Shaughnessy. What brings you out on this fine morning?” “Nothing you’ll want to hear, I’m afraid,” said O’Shaughnessy. “Mr. Childs in New York just called to say that the C.B.I. has arrested Jeremy Slater.” It took a moment for Wagner to place the name. “What, the novelist?” “Yes, Judge, the novelist.” Wagner let his head sink into the palm of his hand. “Heaven help us, Kamen has gone off the deep end. This is about that silly book of Slater’s, isn’t it?” “I’m afraid so, sir,” said O’Shaughnessy mournfully. Norton Kamen had been Commandant of the Confederation Bureau of Investigation for as long as anyone could remember. His appointment went all the way back to Gallivan’s day. Rumor in Burgoyne had it that Gallivan had wanted to put one of his own men in charge of the C.B.I., but Commandant Mark Forsyth had something on Gallivan –- just what it was Forsyth had on the Governor-General varied depending on who was relating the rumor -– and a compromise had been reached whereby Forsyth resigned in favor of his hand-picked successor Kamen. Gallivan and Forsyth were both long gone, but no governor-general since then had replaced Kamen. For his own part, Wagner hadn’t seen any need to appoint a new man –- by all accounts, Kamen had the Bureau well in hand, and with the growing troubles in the country, having an experienced man in charge was just common sense. Except that now Kamen had become obsessed with this Slater fellow. Up until recently, Slater had made a fair living writing the sorts of books that literary critics enthused over, but the general reading public tended to pass over in favor of more pleasantly entertaining fare. Then, last year, Slater had produced Essays of the Revolution, which took up Ivan Falls’ anti-urban ideas with a vengeance, decrying industrialization itself and calling on the people of the C.N.A. to tear down their industrial plants and cities and return to an agrarian existence. Wagner knew for a fact that acts of industrial sabotage had been growing in number even before Slater’s book came out, but Kamen had got a bee in his bonnet and become convinced that the writer was at the heart of a vast, sinister conspiracy to destroy all of civilization. And now the old fool had gone and arrested the man. If Wagner knew his writers, then being arrested as a public menace had probably sent Slater into transports of delight. “You know what this means don’t you, Mr. O’Shaughnessy?” Wagner said to his secretary. “What’s that, sir?” With a sigh, Wagner turned to look downriver at the smoke-shrouded city. “It means I’m going to have to go into town and speak with the commandant.” ---- :Across the river in Hoboken :Where many promises are spoken :I met a girl, the sweetest in the world :And felt my interest awoken As was his custom when sitting in his office in the Palace, Calvin Wagner had the radio set tuned to a music program. Wagner liked listening to music and was firmly of the opinion that any Fallsian agrarian utopia that didn’t include recorded and broadcast music was one he wanted no part of. Wagner also knew that Commandant Kamen detested popular music. It would never do, of course, to publicly insult the man in any way. Now more than ever, the people of the C.N.A. had to know that the government had complete confidence in the forces of law and order, especially since Wagner did not in fact have complete confidence in Kamen. Still, there were ways of letting a man know that you that you were not pleased with his performance that didn’t require an open rebuke. :Across the bay in Brooklyn City :Where heartbreak saddens every ditty :I sent a sigh aloft into the sky :Because my girl was oh so pretty Kamen had already been summoned to the Executive Palace, and Wagner now awaited him there, together with Mr. O’Shaughnessy and Attorney-General Marmaduke Temple. Mr. O’Shaughnessy had filled the attorney-general in on the Slater situation, and that gentleman was discussing the legal ins and outs. :Across the river in Hoboken :Where many promises are broken :I lost a girl, the coldest in the world :And now my dreams are all a-croakin’ “Unfortunately,” said Temple, “Mr. Kamen appears to have laid his plans with care. The sedition laws in the Northern Confederation are particularly broad; they have been ever since Governor Gilpin’s day. Mr. Slater’s inflammatory book may well fall within the N.C.’s prohibition against subversive speech. If it can be proved that Mr. Slater’s book fomented an act of rebellion, Mr. Slater could be convicted of aiding and abetting treason, which carries the death penalty.” Wagner nodded glumly. When passing its Sedition Law in Gilpin’s time, the Northern Confederation Council had relied upon the precedent set during the Rebellion when Tom Paine had been convicted of treason for publishing his Common Sense pamphlet. Under Gilpin dozens of newspapers with ties to the Grand Consolidated Union and the Laborers’ Alliance had been shut down and their employees hanged for treason. The only thing that had spared Franz Freund the fate of so many of his followers was the fact that he had been elected to the N.C. Council in 1839. The Council’s Liberal majority weren’t quite ready to compromise the principle of legislative immunity. “And so Mr. Kamen will douse the smoldering fire with vulcazine,” Wagner muttered. “Nonsense, Governor-General, nonsense!” Wagner looked up from his desk to see the C.B.I. Commandant looming in the doorway of his office. While insisting that his agents wear only the standard dark suits, bow ties, and derbies, Kamen himself dressed in a forest green quasi-military uniform decked out in a colorful display of medals. Wagner had once read an article from a magazine pinpointing the origin of each of Kamen’s medals. Some he had earned during a hitch in the Royal North American Army, some he had received during his rise through the ranks of the C.B.I. (often by the hand of his mentor Forsyth), some he had awarded himself after becoming commandant, and some had been showered upon him by foreign heads of state seeking to ingratiate themselves. The latter included the Order of Jackson, bestowed by no less a personage than Mexican Chief of State Benito Hermión. Kamen himself was a tall, thin, cadaverous man whose pale boney face was augmented by a pair of bushy white eyebrows. Whenever he saw the commandant, Wagner thought of the Grim Reaper, his black cloak and scythe exchanged for a general’s uniform and ceremonial sword. “Vulcazine?” Kamen continued as he entered the office. “Nonsense, I say! A good heavy flood of ice-cold seawater, rather! Just the thing to let these anarchists know that they flout the law at their own peril!” Kamen’s short, clipped New England accent gave his words a staccato quality that put Wagner in mind of a stock ticker. “So you are determined to see this novelist on the gallows?” Wagner said. “Quite determined, sir,” Kamen insisted. “If this dangerous foolishness is not dealt with quickly and forcefully, heaven only knows what the consequences could be.” A quiet sigh, and Wagner said, “In that case, Commandant, I leave the matter in your hands.” “Of course, Governor-General,” said Kamen. With a sour glance at the still-voluble radio set, he added, “With your permission, I’ll be getting back to work now.” “By all means, Commandant.” When Kamen was gone, Temple said, “If you believe the man’s course of action is unsound, Judge, you have the option of dismissing him. He serves at your pleasure, after all.” Wagner shook his head. “If I do that, Mr. Temple, then we will be made to appear divided and weak, as the Commandant is no doubt aware. Our only option now is to let him tilt at his windmills and pray that he does not worsen the situation.” As Temple and O'Shaughnessy withdrew, the Governor-General turned in his chair and stared out the window at the dingy, half-lit city beyond while the radio played a jaunty tune. Mr. Falls’ agrarian utopia was growing more appealing with every passing minute. ---- Forward to FAN #321C: Return to For All Nails. Category:Historical